I appreciate any help you guys can give me, this is my first time posting on this website. I have to have this in the mail tomorrow.
Prompt:Introduce yourself. Describe an unforgettable event in your life and how it changed your perception of yourself or the view of someone close to you. This event can be dramatic and/or comedic. The assignment may be written as a short story in the first person or as an essay.
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. My god I hope it does.
I was on my way home from a field trip to Gettysburg. Spending the day there with my friends was more then just educational, but fun, a truly enjoyable experience. As I sat on the bus, talking to my friends, I had a sense of satisfaction. I was happy; I was enjoying life. But then a sense of dread came over me; as soon as I got home I knew this feeling would end. I had a massive amount of work to due the next day and it had the potential to take up my whole night. Once I arrived at home I got to work, the drudgery was painful, but not as much as the rest of the night would be.
My work was coming along quite nicely; at the rate I was going I'd have gotten it done with time to spare. But then it happened. First I felt a movement in my arm, then all of a sudden, a sharp pain in my chest. I fell to the ground. It felt exactly like a heart attack is supposed to. I was confused. I didn't know for sure that's what it was, but I was scared, more scared then I had ever been in my life. Then the symptoms expanded and got stranger. I felt a sensation of liquid rushing throughout my torso, I began shivering, my heart rated spiked, I felt like I wasn't getting enough oxygen, and my arms and hands slowly began to numb. It just continued to get worse. Something was wrong, very, very, wrong. If I were alone I would have called an ambulance. Even in retrospect I realize that this probably would have been the best idea. However I was with my family and my father is a doctor, he's never taken any medical issue I've ever had seriously and as I sat their thinking this was the end, he acted like it was nothing. I thought that this would be the way I died, sudden and anti-climactically.
It was in this moment that my life was forever changed. It's not an uncommon story to hear someone who has gone through a near death experience opine that they need to live more in the moment and that they hadn't enjoyed life enough. My revelation was quite the opposite. All I could think about was how I hadn't done anything substantial in my life. I thought about the famous. I knew the names of important scientists, such as Jonas Salk, a graduate of NYU's medical school, his research had saved the lives of so many people; he would be remembered fondly for centuries. I knew the names of important politicians, such as Ted Kennedy, Barak Obama and countless others that changed the landscape of American government, they would be recorded in history. I knew the names of important entertainers such as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, both of whom attended NYU and whose work had enriched the lives of countless moviegoers; their films would be eternal. As I thought about all these people it was clear to me who I was: nobody. I was so scared in this moment not because it was the end, but because it was an end without any sense of accomplishment.
I also thought about my friends and how much they mean to me. I thought I might never see them again. There was nothing I wanted more desperately than an opportunity to say goodbye to them. I would not be blessed with that opportunity. It was an incredibly depressing thought.
As these thoughts occupied my mind an hour passed. I slowly began to recover. Feeling returned to my extremities, as I controlled my breathing my heart rate returned to normal and the pains subsided. I was still in shock. I'm not a religious man, but if I were, this would have been the time at which I thanked god.
Obviously I did not die in this moment, but a part of me did. My ability to feel at all carefree about anything was gone. From this moment forward I knew I was going to have to live my life a different way. I needed to do something worthwhile, become somebody. I would have to become a more dedicated person. Up until this point I had little regard for my health. That would be the first and easiest thing I would change. I was going to do whatever was in my power to prevent an event like this from occurring again. Unfortunately though it did happen again. It came back the next day even worse; I was rushed to the hospital. After being there for a few hours my symptoms again subsided and none of their tests showing anything, so I went back home.
Slowly over the next few weeks, the symptoms started to recur less and less and when they did I wasn't nearly as scared as after having it happen a couple times I realized it wasn't killing me. Its been three months since the first time it happened and to this day no one's really sure what caused it. The prevailing theory is that it was acid reflux, which has been known to mimic heart attacks on rare occasions, luckily though it's not nearly as deadly. That diagnoses doesn't fully explain all of the symptoms though.
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's the perfect poetic image for the end of life. It wraps up your life's story in a neat little bow right before it all disappears. There's no real reason to believe it's true though. No scientific evidence backs up this fabled occurrence. I've had so many wonderful times in my life, maybe I just didn't come close enough death, but none of those times came back to me. I just felt a sensation of being alone, and that was even though there were people with me. I truly hope that when my time comes and I'm the closest to death I'll ever be, that I will see my life play back, and even more importantly, I hope that there will be something amazing to see.
